" A LADY TRIP " Sailing around the World,
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sun 16 May 2010 19:09
SATURDAY 15th
MAY 2010 ( Presently in " Tahaa"
)
06.00hrs, up and about again in paradise on
earth.
The race today is around the island of " Tahaa"
inside the lagoon, the wind is light and the starting area is very
close
to where we were moored for the night
08.33hrs, our start, a port fetch this time ( as
all the other starts were down wind) and the course is clockwise around
the Island.
The channel is wide in most places, about a half
mile, but it gets very narrow in some sections, and tacking could be tricky and
the distance is approx 17 miles.
Like the other days, we started in the last bunch
of boats, so had to crawel our way through the fleet, for us, the two boats we
really want to beat are
"Ocean Jasper " and " Crazy Horse" , our yanky
friends..................... Ocean Jasper had a great start and got clear very
quickly, they also
flew an assymetric spinniker, something we decided
at an early stage not to do.
These two boats are " Sundeer 60's " An
American design. and look like two greyhounds
We were ahead of " Ceazy Horse"from the start , the
wind sort of followed us around the Island, and only when we reached the
eastern
side again, did we have a proper beat, we slowly
overhauled " Ocean Jasper" and passed them about 2 miles from the
finish... job done..
We finished 4th boat, but 8th on corrected time,,
we were happy enough with that.
15.00hrs Shortly after the finish, we motored
in " A Lady " to the "Hibiscus Restaurant " just around the corner from our
designated mooring
area. Skipper and Aileen had dinner there 13 years
ago , when we chartered a yacht from the " Moorings" in Raiatea.
Skipper wanted to meet the owner, and check if he
remembered,, Us Irish novices,
The owner is still the same guy , ( who also
sold us a turtle at the time, who we called Patrick and released him
outside the reef and pointed him in the direction of Ireland, mind you, he never
arrieved )
" Leo " the french owner took out a visitors
book for 1997 & 1998 and suggested to the skipper that he have a look
and see if we signed it
on our visit there,
Ohhhhhhhhh look ,, The 26th
October 1997 , a full page sketch by the skipper of the chartered yacht, with
himself and Aileen peering over the cockpit sides. plus lots of other
comments,,
Ahh , isint memory lane a wonderfull place....
Snorre and Stian were impressed with it all, so we had a beer to celebrate the
event.
Skipper asked for his money back on the Turtle as
he never made it to Ireland, obviously the turtle had damaged navigational
equipment,
so " I want my money back"
anyway, LEO thought that was very funny, so we all had a great
laugh.
The Irish flag we gave him, is still hanging
there.
Off we went , back to the boat, and had a nap
before returning to the designated mooring area.
The wind increased as forcast, and brought with it
, plenty of rain.
we were collected at 18.30 hrs and brought ashore
for a BBQ and fancy dress night.
The food was their best so far, and we had a great
night, met John and Anne Tierney from the cook Islands again
and swopped emails and phone numbers. ( just in
case we get close to where they live )
However we did get wet on the return journey to the
boat, with the wind now over 30 knots, we decided to leave out another
10m of chain
before hitting the scratchers,, wrecked , but
happy,
ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Signed :-
Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )
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